Friday, August 8, 2014

the scariest thing to happen in a long time.

This week has been all over the place. Here it is, in a nutshell.

1) Thanks for making me feel less alone with my moving weirdness. It really did help!

2) A home stager came and basically suggested we do $6K worth of work to the house. After I told her that wasn't happening, she asked me to get rid of all of my cute knick-knacks clutter before the photographer came that afternoon. That I was able to do. But, our house is on the market! We had a showing appointment yesterday and another on Saturday so I'm hoping that someone wants it, or at least provides good feedback as to why they aren't interested.

3) I got to see some of my favorites, Miranda and Sarah, on Tuesday for dinner. We were all wearing striped shirts and it was awesome (and unplanned). I know on Wednesdays we wear pink, but apparently on Tuesdays, some of us wear stripes.

Apparently I like to not fully open my eyes in photos. And we also forgot to clue Miranda into the statement necklace requirement. And Sarah's bump is saying hi, too!

4) I've been wanting a new vacuum for a few months now and ours finally died. I had been coveting the one Steph posted about last month and was pretty sure I was just going to get it. Then my Costco mailer arrived for the month and there was a Shark vacuum, very similar to Steph's (it has the detachable canister, it's bagless, and it has a pet hair attachment. They may be the same, just different colors.) for $120. I bought it last night, Andrew assembled it, and my floors haven't felt this clean in forever. So far, I highly recommend it.

5) Okay, on to the terrifying story (that I can laugh at now). There's a critically-beloved restaurant that we pass daily on the way home in a not-so-great part of town. Andrew thought it had closed and become something else and, being that he's been getting pretty friendly with food writers in Houston, wanted to have a story before they did. So we drove past and saw a sign for an Afghani restaurant. The restaurant had been Ethiopian, so it looked like suspicions were confirmed. He took a photo of the new sign, then drove back around the parking lot to make sure he wasn't missing anything. We were almost out of the parking lot when a man hit our trunk hard with his hand. Andrew waved him off and kept driving and the guy ran to my side of the car and started banging on the window and tried to open the door, yelling "Why did you take a photo?" Honestly, I freaked out and probably yelled "Why the --- does it matter?" and Andrew pulled onto the private road that would get us on to the freeway service road the and guy stood in front of the car, refusing to let us pass and screaming at us. He tried to open the doors again and screamed at us and said he was calling the police (really dude, for taking a photo?). We tried to yell at him through the window that we just took a picture but we wouldn't roll the window down and he wouldn't move from in front of us. We called the police ourselves. Then another, larger man drove up and caused us to block traffic on this road. We called 911 again because we felt threatened - we were two people in a car taking a photo and this guy had a restaurant full of workers to come help him! At one point, there were five men out there looking at us, taking photos of the car, us, and our license plate. The guy in front of the car moved to one side to motion to one of his friends and Andrew tried to drive forward and just get us away- the guy threw himself on the hood of the car and claimed he ran over his foot (he definitely didn't. The idiot continued to stand there, proving what we already knew). This all took about thirty minutes; Andrew and I pretended to be on the phone the whole time. Finally, another man came out and talked to the guy in front of the car and his other main guy. They looked at us a few more times, and then walked away. I gave that guy a thumbs up and we left. I was shaking so bad and my heart was racing.

A police officer called us about ten minutes later. The man at the restaurant said we had screamed at him. Andrew said we did, but only after he tried to open the door of our moving vehicle. The officer said he told them that that was not legal behavior and they couldn't do it all anymore and told them that all we wanted to do was take a photo so we would have the restaurant's name. I did file something with the police department in case this guy claims a foot injury or something, but the officer who called seemed to believe it was all over.

I was so mad that something so innocent turned into something scary. We had no way of knowing if these guys had weapons or why they were so aggressive. Now, I'm able to laugh a little at the absurdity of it all, but during it I was nauseous and near tears. I really hope nothing comes of it, but you never know...

Anyway, so now that that craziness is over, I can move on with my weekend. We have dinner plans with friends for Houston Restaurant Weeks and of course, the never ending battle of keeping the house clean and streamlining all of our junk.

19 comments:

Yeah, definitely scary while it's happening. Did these people work at the restaurant? If so, they really need to learn some better customer service skills. Talk about scaring away potential patrons. Geez!

What a bunch of weirdo's, he better be glad y'all weren't Texans with big guns in your car. I would have freaked out and run them over probably, I always wonder what I would do if someone tried to attack my vehicle.

WTF? That is all I can say!! I'm glad it all turned out okay but I'm still curious as to why they went into a tizzy over a pic? I hate to make assumptions but I can only wonder why they were so suspicious and angry.

What in the world!!! He should have been happy. WHo knows. Maybe you were going to google it... instead - you should put the name of the restaurant out there so no one eats there. NOW if you were taking a photo of his house, I could see him getting upset, but a public building. Geez.Glad y'all are alright.

OMG. I would have been so scared, too! What was their problem?! Good for you if you're able to laugh at it a little bit... I'd still be shaking. If they are so jumpy and aggressive, why in the world would they open a restaurant?! I'm so glad you're OK. :)

OMG! That guy is crazy! I would have been scared, and freaking out if I were you. Glad you are both okay. I wouldn't be making any reservations there if I were you!I'm a big fan of your blog!! I nominated you for the Liebster Award!! Check out the details on my blog at: http://findinganewhappy.wordpress.com/